Chavez Funds Alliance with Cuba, Bolivia to Counter 'Empire'

By Correspondent Gerardo Arreola

Translated By Paula van de Werken

April 30, 2006

Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)

Havana: Cuba and Venezuela announced on Saturday the relaunching of their strategic alliance, this time with the addition of Bolivia, which will include foreign policy and trade coordination, and a payment regime adapted to the asymmetries of this nascent regional block [Venezuela has oil money, while Cuba and Bolivia have little].

The pact was agreed to by Presidents Evo Morales, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, who today will hold a closed door summit, a public ceremony, a press conference, and a public meeting in Revolution Square.

All the technical experience and economic potential of Cuba and Venezuela "we put at the disposal of Bolivia," said Chavez, in one of the statements made to describe the nature of the pact, in which he acknowledged the importance of Venezuelan petroleum and financing.

Morales signed the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), the framework for relations between Havana and Caracas, and then the three leaders expressed their support for an agreement to promote a People's Commercial Treaty (TCP), an initiative of the Bolivian leader.

At a meeting that evening, Castro alluded to the American President, George W. Bush, by mentioning the helicopter trips that Morales takes to the highest regions in Bolivia, and said that he had asked his ally to avoid taking such risks

"We don't have the right to do whatever we want," said the Cuban leader. "We have the right and the obligation to concern ourselves with the enemy, who is not going to stop trying to kill these men."

"We already know which are his arts, his capacities and his devices, which can make possible an accident on an airplane or in a helicopter" he added. "Because they also know how to practice silent murder" said the Cuban leader. "That little man who presides over the Empire of the United States is an Olympic Champion of that profession."

SUPPORT FOR BOLIVIA

In answer to journalists' questions, Morales said that Bolivia is most benefited by the trilateral pact, and he explained that under the new program, products from his country could reach the other two partners duty-free.

"That this will to help Bolivia emerge from its economic crisis makes it a very important step," added the former leader of Bolivia's coca-growers' syndicate. "Only in Cuba and Venezuela do we find unconditional support, unlike with some countries that offer us only blackmail and threats."

Morales said that the experience of neo-liberalism had left his country "torn apart and economically ruined," and that he hoped to confront the crisis by instituting State reforms with the help of the Constituent Assembly, who face elections next July.

Chavez confirmed that Bolivia will be most benefited by the alliance, but he rejected any suggestion that the program put that country "in a handicapped state." He added that within the pact, there is "equality of States and equality of treatment," even if one acknowledges differences in development.

Chavez explained that his country would offer Bolivia technical and legal advice for mining and oil-drilling operations, which would lay a "new foundation" for the sector, for instance, in the supply of crude and refined oil products, asphalt and liquid gas, until the demands of that nation are entirely met.

Bolivia will use Venezuelan technology to extract liquid gas, and will pay its energy bills with its own products, such as Soya, the total production of which will be acquired by Venezuela and Cuba. Chavez explained that Bolivian businesses, or businesses in Venezuela with Bolivian capital, would remain tax-exempt during the time it takes to recover their investments.

Chavez pointed out that there will also be 5,000 scholarships for Bolivian students majoring in petrochemicals. He then revealed that Iran is transferring technology to Venezuela used to fabricate machines that produce plastic bottles.

The strategic pact will also include Venezuelan advice for creating an industrial petrochemical center in Bolivia, and that Caracas will fund the center's projects with up to $100 million.

CONFRONTATION WITH EMPIRE

Judging by the content and the way it has been presented, the emerging plans directly confront the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and other free trade agreements (FTA) favored by the United States.

"As ALBA defeated the FTAA, the TCP has to defeat the FTA, as opposed to certain demands and agreements of the United States," Morales said.

Chavez pointed out that "in the face of aggression and the approaching imperial free trade plan," the three-party alliance is reacting with its own commercial ideas. "This act of today is part of the plan of attack."

During the press conference, Morales asked Chavez to consider not pulling Venezuela out of the Andean Community of Nations, but rather that he stay within it to "revamp it." The Venezuelan leader said he liked the idea, but he didn't say if he would or wouldn't continue with his withdrawal from that mechanism.

CUBAN AND VENEZUELAN TRADE

Before signing, the Cuban Minister for Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, Marta Lomas, produced a report on relations between the island [Cuba] and Venezuela, according to which bilateral trade reached $2.4 billion last year.

Venezuela sent some 98,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba with an easy credit; while the island offered the South American country [Venezuela] a package of services concentrating on health, education and computer science. According to the report, Venezuela was declared free of illiteracy last October, after a Cuban-run literacy campaign.

As part of the plan, there are 23,601 Cuban doctors and professional technicians working in poor Venezuelan neighborhoods, and to date they have built over 1,200 health care centers with various facilities.

During a closed door meeting in the evening, Castro amended the report and pointed out that Venezuelan non-petroleum exports to Cuba had grown 255 percent. During his turn in the Plaza [Revolutionary Square], Chavez recalled that last year, at a similar ceremony, Evo Morales was then an opposition leader.

He then addressed Sandinista presidential candidate Daniel Ortega, who was with the Presidents during the summit ceremony, saying, "Daniel, we are inviting you to come here as President of Nicaragua next year."